A man had two daughters, and he was very wealthy. One daughter married a man who was also very rich, and the other wanted to marry a poor man, but the father would not allow it. However, she had fallen in love with the poor man and married him anyway. They lived very modestly. The others, on the other hand, lived lavishly, but their life together was not good. They fought, argued, and many other things happened between them!

When Christmas Eve came, the father became very curious about how they would celebrate the evening meal: how one daughter would do it and how the other would. First, he went to the daughter who was married to the rich man. So much food was served there that not all the dishes could fit on the table. But what good did it do them? They began to argue. They hadn't even finished the meal when they started fighting. The father said, "Now I'll go to the poor daughter and see what the poor do, how things are with them."

He went there. The poor sat down. They had cooked a little kutya, and now they were eating it. They had a little borscht, and they ate that too. Then she said, "You know, husband! Once my mother always cooked a sweet porridge on Christmas Eve. There were many dishes, and at the end, there was the sweet porridge. But we can't manage that, so let's kiss instead!"

The father was very pleased that life was so harmonious with this daughter, and he took the two in with him.

Since then, sweet porridge has been cooked on Christmas Eve. This is how my father always told it in Lisnja. He said this happened so that people would love one another. The porridge was the last dish. Sometimes it was made from buckwheat, but mostly from millet or rice, because those can be sweetened; buckwheat porridge cannot be sweetened.

Aus: Wintermärchen, Mutabor Verlag 2011. Eingelesen von der Mutabor Märchenstiftung auf www.maerchenstiftung.ch. Englische Fassung Lysander Jaenike